I Should Have Been There
by Ang1
Summary: He realizes he should have been there, she realizes she doesn't want to be what his parents thought she wasn't. ONESHOT RL post 6.05 sort of follows slighltly less intense, but if you didn't read that, don't worry.


She collapses onto the sofa next to me, crossing her arms. "That can't be good." I hear myself mutter. "Did I do something wrong?" I ask carefully, trying not to notice as the skirt to her uniform slides up her legs.

"Nope." She clips, and then turns to face me. "Did you know they were going to be there?"

I stare at her blankly. "That was way out of left field Ace, even for you."

"Your parents, did you know they were going to be there tonight?"

"I'm sorry, did you just say that my parents showed up at a DAR function?" I pause, and she nods. "Ace, my parents don't **_go_** to DAR functions. My father hates them."

"Well, apparently they changed their minds. I had to re-arrange the seating chart so that they weren't at the slush table." She pauses. "Though to be fair, I only moved them because Grandma forced me to. I was perfectly content to let them sit in the corner."

I stretch my neck carefully. "I'm still stuck on the fact that they were there." I sigh. "I should have been there for you." I pull her into my arms.

"They didn't even bother to RSVP. They just showed up and demanded a table." She whispers. "I didn't even know your father was there until Grandma came over to freak out about the fact that I put your mother at the slush table, well, both of them actually."

I kiss her hair softly. "Why didn't you call me?"

"You were doing the poker thing tonight." She offers.

"Yeah, and I was cutting out early to find out about your first big thing anyways. You should have called me Rory."

"It's tense between you guys right now. I didn't want to make it worse." She pulls back and I can see tears in her eyes. "I don't want to be the needy girlfriend. I want to be strong."

I reach up to push a strand of hair out of her eyes. "You are anything but needy and you know it Ace." I offer, touching my lips to hers softly. I pull back before she has a chance to respond. "Besides, sometimes a guy wants to feel needed."

She smiles. "You got me the kick butt sound system."

I laugh a bit. "Yeah, but I don't want you to feel like you can't come to me with the big stuff just because I'm new to this girlfriend thing. I'll never learn if you won't let me try."

She nods. "Lately I feel like I'm just sort of reeling between crises though. You don't need that on top of school."

"Yeah, I do. I need the reminder that someone out there relies on me simply because I'm Logan. Not because I'm Mitchum's son." I breathe. "You're the only thing keeping me grounded Ace, and I really, really need that." I pause. "So, do you remember that conversation we had back at the beginning of the summer?"

She groans. "We talked about this Logan. We talked about this when Grandma offered me the job at the office. I can't just walk away; she thought I needed a job."

"I miss you." I drop a light kiss on her neck.

She pulls back abruptly. "You changed the subject!"

I wince. "Did I?"

"Yeah, I wasn't done freaking out about your parents!"

I shrug. "I thought you were. Actually, I thought we had decided on me confronting them about it tomorrow." I return to her neck, slowly making my way up towards her jaw line.

"That was never mentioned." She breathes.

"I must have skipped that part." I admit, moving to capture her lips.

She pulls back. "Logan." She whispers calmly. "I had to be nice to them."

I nod, and pull her tightly against me. "I know. Believe me, I know. I feel so bad for not realizing they might show up when they heard it sold out. I should have remembered that they don't RSVP to charity events, they just show up if it seems to be popular."

"She didn't know I organized it. I could see it in her eyes." She whispers. "Her eyes changed. They changed as though it occurred to her in that moment that she was wrong about me. I don't want to become what they thought I wasn't. I'm in love with you, really I am, but I don't want to become a society wife whose life revolves around gossip and her husband. I want to be allowed to have an opinion. The fact that her eyes changed scared me."

"Then come back to Yale in January. I can make Lanny find a new roommate; we'll get an apartment and give Paris a key so she can still get to you. Hell, I'll even go so far as to say we can get a place in Paris and Doyle's building."

She pulls back a bit, and meets my eyes. "We could just take the still empty spare room in their apartment to calm Paris' nerves about her parents' accounts being frozen by the IRS."

I close my eyes and breathe deeply. "Ace, the only way I'm agreeing to that is if you can get her to call a ceasefire. I'm not living with her unless she admits to the fact that I wasn't the reason you left."

"I'll talk to her." She says quickly. "Is that a yes?"

"I want to hear it from her." I remind her. "Not from you. I would also like her to acknowledge the fact that I'm the one who got you to go back." I pause. "I would also like you to mention that part to your mother when you finally make up with her. I need the Brownie points."

She grins. "Deal."

I lean down, and capture her lips in a soft kiss. "So, before we continue this on that large bed your grandparents picked out, I need to ask one more thing."

She lifts an eyebrow. "You're putting off bed related activities to ask me a question? This had better be good Huntzberger, I had a really stressful night and need a distraction."

I touch her face lightly. "That can be arranged, however, I would like to know this: Who's going to tell Emily that you're not going to be her spy anymore?"


End file.
